Rated: M
Directed by: Ralph Fiennes
Written by: David Hare
Inspired by the book “Nureyev : The Life” by: Julie Kavanagh
Produced by: Gabrielle Tana p.g.a., Ralph Fiennes p.g.a., Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Andrew Levitas, François Ivernel
Composer: Ilan Eshkeri
Starring: Oleg Ivenko, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Chulpan Khamatova, Ralph Fiennes, Alexey Morozov, Raphaël Personnaz, Olivier Rabourdin, Ravshana Kurkova, Louis Hofmann, with Sergei Polunin and Maksimilian Grigoriyev, Andrey Urgant, Nadezhda Markina, Anna Polikarpova, Nebojša Dugalić, Anastasia Meskova.
Based on the true story of the Soviet Union ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev (Oleg Ivenko), The White Crow is a film that shifts in time, from his time during the cold war, visiting France as a member of the Kirov Ballet Company in the 1960s, back to his lessons, showing his determination to be the best, the most expressive male dancer, back to the time of his childhood and his birth in 1938 on a crowded train as it travels through the snowy countryside – all his past leading to his ultimate defection from the Soviet Union to France where in a dramatic scene he seeks asylum while under the careful guard of the KGB.
We see the contrast of the oppressive days living in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the scenes leached of colour, to renewed hope after the war where the people living under the communist regime feel the bad days are over, only to see the vigour and freedom of Paris and the gorgeous be-jewelled costumes and stage-craft of lights and dancing, chandeliers and standing ovations.
The film shows the background of this famous performer, giving insight into his infamous temper and demands. He explains to his friend and French supporter, Clara Saint (Adèle Exarchopoulos), his nickname, White Crow: the unusual, the extraordinary, not like others: an outsider.
To be able to express and give all of himself in the dance, his drive must remain pure, his soul free.
Ralph Fiennes, has directed with restraint, giving the tone of the film a quiet power.
It was the silence of the soundtrack that absorbed, to hear the scraping of ballet shoes on a hard wooden floor cutting to Rudi’s admiration and observation of paintings and statues in the Rembrandt Room of the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg, showing his aspiration to be as perfect as a statue himself.
The layering of the story makes the film more than the defection of Rudolf Nureyevilm, this is about the determination of a driven and abrasive, spectacularly brilliant dancer, as he explores a world he’s only dreamed about, filled with intellectual conversation, acceptance, art, adoration and freedom.
As his long-time supporter and teacher Alexander Pushkin (Ralph Fiennes – directing and also starring) explains to the KGB about Rudi’s defection – it’s not about politics, it was more an ‘explosion of character’.
Yet it’s the love of his mother and his childhood, the flashes back to his father returning in uniform, his mother searching for firewood in the bitter cold, that gives him the strength to fight through any fear of performance.
It’s a classically, beautiful film filled with the grace of ballet and violins, the tap of piano, the production team determined to show the story with respect with the cast made-up of native Russian actors, the lead, Oleg Ivenko also an award winning ballet dancer.
What I appreciated as a viewer was the cast speaking Russian instead of English with a Russian accent.
And the setting is filmed in France, and Russia, the artwork of Géricault’s painting ‘The Raft Of The Medusa’ used to show the beauty of Rudi’s internal torment and ability to see the beauty in the tragic.
Like Rudi tells Clara Saint, if you have no story to tell, you have no reason to dance.